An article on
Eurogamer looks at the upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion for
Diablo III, and the
the
indications that one of its goals is to "cut the legs out from the Auction
House" in the action/RPG sequel. They discuss the add-on and the items/auctions
fiasco with Blizzard's Josh Mosqueira and Kevin Martens, and one of Josh's
replies admits they were tempted to scrap it entirely, but speaks of
"complications" that go beyond "the Blizzard level," which suggests that
Activision would not approve (or perhaps NSA intervention). Here's the part that
has us drawing inferences:

Were you tempted to scrap it entirely? I ask.
Did the thought ever cross your mind?

"We'd be lying if we didn't say yes," Josh replies after a moment's
contemplation. "We saw the reaction. Again, it's a complicated matter. It's not
just complicated at the team level, or even the Blizzard level.

Post CommentEnter the details of the comment
you'd like to post in the boxes below and click the button at
the bottom of the form.

Malachii wrote on Sep 6, 2013, 11:46:What % of PC players are offline when they want to play a title like D3? REALLY?

You do realize someone got fired from Microsoft for this opinion, right? Not everyone lives in an urban area where getting broadband is like getting electricity. Besides your entire argument is moot because they made the console version be off-line. If there wasn't a market for that why make it?

Difference is one was regarding an entire platform and this is regarding a single game. If you dont like it, dont play the game. I've been playing online only games for 10+ years and will continue to do so. If I dont have internet at any given time, I will play something else and I won't rage about it, unlike what Undocumented Moron thinks.

If MS or Sony or whomever attempts to make an entire platform permanently online required, I will have a problem with it. If my computer, iPhone, PS3 or (newly acquired) Vita were online only, they would lose a lot of my business as an entire platform requiring Internet all the time would be a massive inconvenience.

D3 has great gameplay (even better in coop) and production value but falls short in story department, but unlike others, I never held the story in such high regard and just skip it all after the first play through anyways. I get bored quickly playing it solo, but can play for hours with other people. D3 has issues, which is no different than any other game I own. Many issues have been addressed over several patches in the past year + and many more are set to be addressed in the expansion and the continued patches.

Don't like the AH? Don't use it. It's that simple. It's not required and the difficulty in later He'll and Inferno hasn't been an issue since the first patch.